Countdown
by cookies-at-midnight
Summary: They slip out onto the balcony at dawn to watch the sun rise. Wincest.


Four days into their investigation of a rash of unexplained disappearances in L.A. they wasted a gang of fifteen vamps holed-up in an abandoned warehouse just off the Sunset Strip. Dean made a quip about it being right out of a bad Buffy episode and Sam snorted dutifully but they were both worried.

"Didn't Dad say that vampires are all but extinct?"

"Yeah, so?"

"So? Dean, this makes three gangs we've come across in the past month. Not to mention the ones we went after with him last year. I don't get it."

"It doesn't mean anything, Sammy, Dad just got his facts wrong is all."

"You and I both know that Dad doesn't just get his facts wrong."

"Well, this time he did, end of discussion. Now we're going back to the motel so I can wash this blood off me before I accidentally swallow some and inconsistent vamp stats become the least of your problems."

Sam let Dean stalk off and didn't bring up the blood that had boiled out of the faucet when he'd gone to brush his teeth that morning.

* * *

Three days outside of New Mexico they witnessed the birth of a three headed dog by the side of the road as Dean pulled over to pump up a flat. When Sam asked him what he thought it meant he said, "Dude, weird shit happens, get over it."

"Dean, I don't believe – How can you of all people write off everything that's been going on as coincidence? This is exactly our kind of thing and you're completely ignoring it. Did you see its ey-"

"I'm not ignoring anything, it _is_ just coincidence, and we're still not having this discussion."

"Well, I think you're being really stupid."

"Well, I don't really give a crap."

Dean hit the gas and didn't think about three pairs blood-red eyes.

* * *

Two days from the Montana border they got a call from Bobby saying their father was dead. He said that he was really sorry and he said that John was a good man, a good friend (although really he was neither of those things) and he said that they didn't have time to grieve. "You boys have got bigger problems right now. We all do."

It was Sam who answered the phone and got the whole story. When he asked Dean if he wanted to know what happened Dean nodded and said he did before his legs gave out.

It was Sam who put it all together, all the signs; all the flash-floods and out of season droughts and hurricanes and hundreds of other weather quirks he'd have loved to chalk up to global warming if he didn't know just what kind of world they were living in. The alarming rise in supernatural activity and the bizarre animal births and the fire falling from the goddamn sky.

"_Your Daddy, he came in here about a week ago looking about as bad as a man can get. Said he wanted everything I had on the apocalypse."_

It was Sam who put it all together out loud and Dean just looked at him with dead eyes and said, "Yeah, you're probably right."

* * *

The day before the end of the world they blew all their money on an expensive hotel room in New York and made love on the floor by a king-sized bed with hundred thread-count sheets. They sipped champagne and ate strawberries and Sam thought it was romantic and Dean thought it was ridiculous, but when Sammy giggled something about Pretty Woman and the death of art in film and Dean made fun of him for having ever seen a chick flick, for a moment everything was perfect. Sam said that Jess had made him watch it and there wasn't anything in his voice but nostalgic affection.

By two a.m. they were tangled up together and wide awake, the expensive sheets heaped on the floor and the windows thrown wide to breeze.

"It's funny …"

"Hmm?"

"It's funny how I've been running from this my whole life, and now the world is about to end and it may be the only thing I don't regret."

"I love you, too, Sammy. Now go to sleep."

"I will if you will." Sam felt the chuckle thrum through Dean's chest under his cheek.

* * *

They slip out onto the balcony at dawn to watch the sun rise. Some time around mid-morning they stretch lazily and meander back inside to gather their things.

When the sun blots out at noon and the first demon appears, they turn to each other and grin. They're going out the way they always promised they would: in Fire and Blood and Glory.


End file.
